Perfetsky, Roman

Perfetsky, Roman [Перфецький, Роман; Perfec'kyj], b 1880, d 1944 in Zamość. Lawyer and political leader in Galicia; cousin of Yevhen Perfetsky. While practicing law in Bibrka he was active in various Ukrainian organizations in the region, and in 1913 he was elected to the Galician Diet. He represented the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine in the prisoner of war camp at Wetzlar. In 1918–19 he was a member of the Ukrainian National Rada and deputy state secretary of internal affairs in the State Secretariat of the Western Ukrainian National Republic (ZUNR). In 1920 he headed a delegation of the Ukrainian National Rada in Lviv and then joined the ZUNR government-in-exile and became president of the Western Ukrainian League of Nations Society (1921–4). After returning to Western Ukraine he became active in politics as a member of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance and in 1935 was elected to the Polish Sejm. In 1939, following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the German-Soviet invasion of Poland, Perfetsky fled from the Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine to the Zamość region in the Generalgouvernement, where he worked as a notary public.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]